Dear Diary (Vice Books)
A regular contributor to all those hipster biblesVice, i-D, Nylon, Paper and the now-defunct JaneLesley Arfin, 27, has turned to what all pseudo-edgy auteurs eventually turn toher fucked up adolescence. Except Arfins adolescence is achingly common: sex, drugs and rock n roll (or punk, or rave, or whatever) is hardly atypical nowadays, especially when a healthy dose of introspection isnt thrown into the mix. To her Vice column, which consisted of a diary entry from back-in-the-day paired with an update, Arfin has added interviews with the main players from her past in an attempt to decipher what exactly went down all those years ago. The end product is a 232-page book dripping with self-satisfaction, pretension (despite its staunch denial of such) and a peculiar sense of detachment.
But if you can get past Chloë Sevignys introduction and Arfins preface (both insufferable)which arrogantly begins, Wanna see your future? This book is my whole life, and give or take a few ridiculous circumstances, its yours, too. Heres how it goes: You Grow up in Long Island. First youre cool. Then youre not. Everyone hates you, and you get so insecure you start suppressing emotions by giving handjobs and inhaling whippetsthe diary itself does capture some universals and is a great artifact from a time that differs from ours mostly only in music and fashion.
The problem is, Dear Diary is an exercise in self-reflection, and Arfin doesnt seem to have done much of that. In fact, her updates offer little more insight than the original entries. The general sentiment is that people without issues are boring and superficial, or maybe that everyone has issuesboth, granted. But the point of issues is to learn from them. Sure, we can be proud of being outcasted by those whom, looking back, wed never want to embrace us. But youd think at 27, Arfin and her ilk would be more concerned with what they are taking a stance against (or for), than in penning an ode to empty defiance.